


part of something greater

by ArgentLives



Series: Across Every Universe (You are Home) [21]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Character Death, Coping, Episode: s02e06 Enter Zoom, F/M, Heavy Angst, Moving On, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 18:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5595694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentLives/pseuds/ArgentLives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The Flash,” she cuts her off with acid in her voice, a bitter taste on her tongue because so many people seem to forget, “Was a person. He was a hero, but he wasn’t just that. He was my friend. My best friend. Barry Allen.” Her breath catches on the name, and instinct and habit from keeping the secret for so long, always dancing around the truth in her writing, makes something uneasy clench in her stomach at saying it out loud. But it doesn’t really matter who knows anymore, does it? Barry Allen is dead, which means the Flash is dead with him, and there’s no need for a secret identity when you’re six feet under. </p><p>[a take on what would've happened if Barry hadn't survived his encounter with Zoom in episode 2x06 and how Iris deals with losing him]</p>
            </blockquote>





	part of something greater

**Author's Note:**

> written for the prompt: zoom kills barry + iris dealing with it 
> 
> (disclaimer that I don’t read comics and have no idea how the speed force actually works so just roll with me here)

It’s on every news station that night—they don’t even wait a fucking _day—_ and then it’s on again the following morning, and afternoon, and night. The day after that. The next week, too. Every time she passes a TV, every time she logs onto her computer, she’s presented with that same goddamn video, Zoom shaking Barry’s limp and broken body like a fucking ragdoll, declaring his victory in a voice that’s kept Iris wide awake nearly every night since. 

The first few times she watches the footage, the remote control slipping through numb fingers—useless because it’s on every channel, every goddamn fucking channel and she can’t escape it no matter how hard she tries—she wonders whether he was already dead, then. Or if it happened sometime after, while his body was being dragged through the streets, paraded around the city like some morbid trophy. It doesn’t matter, she supposes. It doesn’t change the fact that at some point, he’d stopped breathing, his heart had stopped beating, and it hadn’t started again. 

Around the fourth time the footage plays on TV—and she can see herself in it, the back of her head, the person filming it must have been _right behind her_ and shehates herself for not smashing their fucking camera to pieces—she throws the remote control at the screen, hard enough to shatter it. Her dad doesn’t say anything when he comes home and sees. She figures he’s probably grateful.

She asks her new boss (new because Larkin is dead, just like Barry, just like that) for leave from work, and when she asks why Iris tells her it’s because there’s been the death of a loved one in her life. The woman eyes her dubiously, at first. “West, I know you had some sort of connection with the Flash, but listen, we’re all upset about it. I don’t think that’s reason enough to—” 

“The Flash,” she cuts her off with acid in her voice, a bitter taste on her tongue because so many people seem to forget, “Was a person. He was a hero, but he wasn’t just that. He was my friend. My  _best_ friend. Barry Allen.” Her breath catches on the name, and instinct and habit from keeping the secret for so long, always dancing around the truth in her writing, makes something uneasy clench in her stomach at saying it out loud. But it doesn’t really matter who knows anymore, does it? Barry Allen is dead, which means the Flash is dead with him, and there’s no need for a secret identity when you’re six feet under. 

It shocks her boss into saying yes, anyway, and she’s glad, because if one more person asks her to write a memorial piece on Central City’s fallen hero she thinks she might lose it. That is, if she hasn’t already.

For a long time, she doesn’t go out much. Can’t stand to hear people talk about it like it’s just some juicy piece of gossip, can’t stomach the banners and trinkets and things all around the city commemorating the Flash, remembering him and what he’d done for all of them now that he’s gone. She doesn’t really get out of bed much either, can’t find the energy. There doesn’t seem to be much point. 

Eating is a problem too, mostly because everything tastes like nothing, and her stomach never settles, always threatens to throw everything she puts in it right back up. And God, she certainly doesn’t sleep—not with the nightmares that it always brings her now. The nightmares that don’t quite go away in the morning, either, that she sees every time she closes her eyes. Linda tries to get her to talk, tries to get her to leave the house, tries everything under the sun to try to make things better—even tough love. None of it works.

She and her dad should be there for each other, they should talk about it, be a _family_. There’s a million things they should do, but there’s just this void in the both of them, a spot in their hearts that had belonged uniquely to Barry that’s just _gone_ now, and every time she looks at him and sees how much older he looks, how sad his eyes are, she’s reminded of that. And sometimes she can’t even stand to be in the same room.

 

* * *

 

Wally West comes into her life in a blur of red and yellow that’s so familiar it makes her throat close up, and she’s distracted for a while from that mind-numbing pain that comes whenever she thinks about the hole in her chest, the huge chunk that’s suddenly gone missing from her life. Wally is a good younger brother. He doesn’t ask too many questions, and it’s something of a comfort that he doesn’t know her life before. Doesn’t know what’s missing. Doesn’t know  _Barry_. For the first time, she’s glad they’d never met until now, even if her dad doesn’t take the news well at first.

Things get…not better, not really. But she throws herself into helping Wally take down Zoom, because it’s better to be constantly occupied than alone with her thoughts, even though she feels so, so alone, all the time now, even if she’s sitting in a room full of people. They recruit the help of Caitlin and Cisco, and the two of them are surprised to hear from her at first after so long of keeping to herself, and for a fleeting moment she even feels bad for not keeping in touch. They look just as tired as she feels. 

Wally trains, and trains, and trains, and so does Cisco, developing his powers as Vibe and finding out there’s so much more to them than he thought, and it’s a good distraction but she really wishes Wally’s suit was any color but red. She doesn’t mention it, though, even though she hates the constant reminder. Even though there’s a little part of her that resents him for wearing it. Maybe even resents _him_ , despite how close they’ve gotten.

In the end, Wally takes Zoom down with Cisco at his side, but Iris is the one that kills him. She’s not supposed to. No one is supposed to. Killing him isn’t part of the plan, but they knock him out right in front of her and it’s the perfect opportunity and Iris is standing so close, watching it all happen, and she’s still got the gun her dad gave her on her hip for protection, so she does it. She shoots him when he’s already down, already defeated, because she can. And then she shoots him again. And again. And again. Until her finger is numb on the trigger, until her world is a blur of red and all she can think is he killed Barry, he killed Barry, _he deserves to die._

 _Bang!—_ Barry’s body, lifeless and limp— _Bang!—_ Zoom _bragging_ about it, showing off his kill as though he was a hunter and Barry had been nothing more than his prey— _Bang!—_ a coffin being lowered into the ground— _Bang!—_ a scream, a scream, a scream. She shoots until there are no more bullets left, and she doesn’t even notice, keeps pressing her finger down on the trigger and crying harder as it clicks, and clicks, and clicks. It’s not until Wally pries the gun from her fingers that the fog clears from her mind, that she realizes _she’s_ the one screaming, raw and wild and her throat burns from it. 

Her screams taper off into sobs as she falls down hard to her knees, letting her arm fall limp at her side, and she drags her nails down her face and feels something snap inside her, her body shaking so hard her teeth chatter. She cries until it’s hard to breathe, until there’s nothing left in her, and then she laughs, high and hysterical and mingled in with her tears. There’s voices all around her but she can’t bring herself to care what they’re saying, can’t bring herself to care that she probably looks like she’s losing it right now. She _is_ losing it. And then there are familiar hands on her shoulders, gentle but firm, and she lets them coax her to her feet, lets them guide her away.

No one asks her why she did it. No one confronts her about it afterward. They don’t have to; they know.

Jay carries the body back to Earth-2, and she doesn’t ask what he plans to do with it, just watches it being taken away from her, finally out of her life, with a sick sort of satisfaction. 

Later, when she’s regained control, she thinks of the looks her friends keep giving her, sad and pitying and maybe a little bit terrified. She thinks of the kick of the gun in her hand, of Zoom’s body jerking with every impact, of the pool of blood the body had left in it’s wake when they’d finally moved it. Maybe it should be concerning, but she visits Barry’s grave, and she thinks of what Zoom took from her, and she doesn’t regret it. Not even a little bit.

 

* * *

 

“You don’t talk about him much,” Wally says, sitting up on the bed and wincing at the pain the movement causes in his injured ribs. She’s sitting by his bedside at STAR Labs with her heart in her throat, because this scene is too familiar, and the last time she’d seen a speedster lying in this very bed they hadn’t gotten back up. _Zoom didn’t do this,_ she reminds herself, but the terror’s still there, and she hates that the evil bastard still has this hold on her even though she knows that he’s gone. _This was just a regular old meta-human showdown. Just like Barry used to—just like old times._

”You know. Your friend. Barry. But you should,” Wally continues, watching her face carefully, “It’s not helping you to keep all that in, Iris, and I know you miss him. I know you miss him everyday, but—look. I don’t know if this will help, but…I can still feel him out there, you know? It’s not…it’s not something I can really explain, I don’t know, it’s like this—”

“Speed force,” Iris whispers, remembering the times Barry had talked about being a part of something greater than himself when he ran, with that same look of awe and wonder that Wally is wearing now. She wonders if she’s imagining the feeling of something strange hanging in the air, something watching them, like the room is suddenly crackling with electricity. She feels the phantom spark of Barry’s touch on her fingers, and brings her hand up to her lips.

“Yeah,” Wally says slowly, “Yeah, that sounds right. The thing is, I think that once you’re a part of it, you never really leave it. So Barry might not be here physically, but there’s this energy that’s still uniquely him that I guess is still kind of–floating around in the speed force, I guess? Sometimes I think he’s there with me. Helping me along. It’s…weird. But it’s comforting.”

“Thanks, Wally,” she says, and she doesn’t smile, but she feels just a little bit lighter, a little bit warmer, imaging that her Barry is still out there, somewhere. Maybe even in this room. She hopes he knows, at least, how much she loves him, all the things she never got to say, and maybe this means he can hear her when she talks to his grave, maybe he’s not as completely gone from her life as she thought. 

She pulls Wally into a hug and holds him tight, thinking how lucky she is to have this brother of hers back in her life and wondering what she would’ve done if he hadn’t shown up when he did. She thinks Barry would’ve liked him, too. For the first time, that thought doesn’t hurt. 

 

* * *

 

“Miss West!” someone calls out after her as she walks out of Jitters, her coffee warming her numb fingers in the chilly winter air, and she slows down her pace enough for them to catch up. “Sorry—I recognized you from the paper. I read your latest article, the one about that serial arsonist? Saw you on the news, too. I just think it’s amazing how dedicated you are to chasing down your stories. Can I—um, can I get your autograph?”

“Of course,” Iris smiles kindly at him, glowing a little at the praise, although she’s already been scolded by everyone from Linda to her boss to Wally to the team back at STAR about her lack of self-preservation. They’re right to be worried, and probably right about why she’s doing it, but—she’s got it under control. Mostly. She takes the paper and pen the guy is offering to her and decides it can’t hurt, and signs her name with flourish. “Thank you for the compliment, by the way. I’ve always liked being right in the action, you know?”

“Oh, totally,” the guy nods, his eyes bright and wide like he can’t believe who he’s talking to. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I just couldn’t help but wonder–how on _Earth_ did you get away from that one alive?“

It’s a good question, because by all accounts she probably shouldn’t have, but she can’t quite explain why she’s not afraid of much, these days. That’s between her and a good friend of hers. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, letting herself get lost in the feeling of the air against her skin, trying to imagine herself as part of that something more she knows is out there. 

“I guess my guardian angel is looking out for me,” she says, and she smiles even though she’s still hurting. Barry tends to have that effect on her. This time, she knows she’s not just imagining the crackle of electricity at her fingertips. 

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on my [tumblr](http://lesbianlaurellance.tumblr.com/)


End file.
